Let’s Get Fat Saudi Women Program!

A group of Saudi women have organized a “Let Her Get Fat movement in protest against the refusal of their government to allow females to have access to gyms or health clubs where they can exercise. Presently there are illegal clubs which allow Saudi women to exercise and get into physical shape, but the law only allows males to have such clubs. Saudi Arabia’s austere brand of Wahhabi Islam forbids the mixing of unrelated members of the opposite sex which means women can not attend male health clubs. The sport group which handles gyms has been unable to get anyone in the government to sanction female only clubs.

Leading Saudi clerics have condemned the gyms and clubs as “shamelessness” and warned that women attending them would be tempted to leave their homes and neglect their husbands and children. If this is the result of going to a gym, does it mean Saudi men who exercise neglect their wives and children?